HAWK: The Caged Kings MC

by Kathryn Thomas

  “They didn’t used to be. But I’ve changed a lot recently, Melissa. I’m not the same person that I was.” He looks at her with doe-like brown eyes and the hopeful expression on his face tells her that he still hasn’t accepted that they’re over. “It’s good to see you. Take a seat.”

  She smiles back at him, not able to return the sentiment. But not wanting to be rude, she accepts his offer, sliding into the booth opposite him. He seems to visibly relax and pushes his notes into a neat pile to his side. That was something else about Wes, he was ordered, meticulous even. Everything had a place; he was almost compulsive about tidiness. It was yet another reason that he and Melissa just weren’t suited to one another. She’d left him alone in her bedroom for a morning, and he’d re-ordered the books in her shelves into genre and alphabetical order by author. At the time she’d thought that it was sweet and thoughtful, looking back at it, with the full benefit of hindsight, she realized that it was just weird.

  “So you’re working at The Shop now? I saw you there a few days ago.” Melissa tilts her head, taking in Wes’s new threads. He’s wearing ripped jeans and a black t-shirt, fitting in nicely with the other men in the bar.

  “I saw you, too.” Wes smiles at her in a way that makes her insides squirm and not in a good way. “You were with Ownes.” He almost spits the words out, his gaze flicking towards the pool table where Melissa had last seen Hawk.

  Melissa has experienced Wes’s jealousy before; she doesn’t have any intention of explaining herself to him. They aren’t together anymore; it isn’t as if she owes him any kind of explanation about her relationship with Hawk. “I was a little surprised to see you there. I didn’t know you knew anything about being a mechanic. I thought all that manual labor stuff wasn’t really your bag.”

  Wes smiles at her in that indulgent way of his that makes her feel like a stupid little schoolgirl. “Like I said, I’m not the same person I was before. There are probably a lot of things you don’t know about me anymore.” He shrugs enigmatically, and Melissa has to resist the urge to roll her eyes at him. Wes has always had a flair for the dramatic, acting as if there is a camera filming him at all times.

  “Well, I can see there’s one thing that hasn’t changed.” Melissa flicks her eyes towards the notes that sit by his right hand. “You think you’re ever going to trade in your notebook for a laptop? Or, in your opinion, is technology still the big bad that’s destroying the publishing world?”

  Wes shakes his head at her, looking at her patronizingly as if she couldn’t possibly understand what he’s no doubt about to explain to her. If there was one thing that Wes enjoyed more than coming first, it was imparting wisdom to the less gifted. “It’s not an opinion, Melissa. It’s a fact.” He says this as if it were a universal truth. “I know you mean well, but blogs like yours, online news feeds, all that stuff, they’re like a disease, eating at print.”

  “Gee and I just thought that it was called progress.” Melissa doesn’t make any effort to stop herself from rolling her eyes this time. There was a time when she would have put up with Wes’s extreme views, thinking that he was an idealist. Now, she knows that he is just stuck in the past. He doesn’t like change. Keeping everything the same, ordered, and in check, it is all part of his compulsive behavior. When Melissa had suggested that perhaps he talk to a therapist about the root of his problems, Wes had gone postal. She hadn’t brought it up again.

  “It’s not progress because technology is never going to win. You can’t undo hundreds of years of paper, the Ancient Egyptians wrote on papyrus, the Romans on tablets of stone. What will our legacy be?” Wes looks off into the distance, posturing just like he always does. It was as if he were giving a speech to an imaginary rapt audience.

  Melissa was barely even listening. It was a line of thought she’d heard before, any number of times from him. Wes would constantly make fun of her blog or her posts on forums and websites. He would tell her that it wasn’t real writing, because it only existed digitally and there was nothing tangible that you could hold in your hand. At first his words had upset her, that perhaps he was right, later she had realized that he was just being cruel.

  “Melissa?” Wes’s tone jerks her out of her thoughts, and she realizes he must have been speaking to her while she had zoned out. “I asked if you liked the flowers.”

  She takes a deep breath, prepared to re-hash the same conversation she’s had with him any number of times. “They were very pretty, Wes.”

  “White roses, your favorite.” He seems so sure of himself that Melissa doesn’t bother to correct him. They were Wes’s favorite flowers, not hers. He’d just decided that they should be what she liked. His controlling nature had even stretched to believing that her preferences always fell into line with his.

  “They were pretty, Wes. But we’ve talked about this before. You can’t keep sending me gifts. We’re not together anymore.” Her tone is soft but firm, she had learned the hard way that she had to be straight with him. He would cling on to anyone branch of hope that she gave him, so she’d stopped giving him any at all.

  “Things change, Melissa. We’re so right for each other; you can’t deny that.” He leans forward, covering her hand with his and tightening his grip so she would have to yank hers away hard to get away from him. “I would never treat you like Ownes, with such little respect. I know you like no one else, Melissa.”

  She feels her stomach roll at his contact. No matter how much she tries to forget the way he had touched her that night when he had tried to… Anyway, it was useless, it always brought her back to that moment in her house, when panic had set in as she had realized what was about to happen. From the outside, Wes would seem like a catch to most women, tall, attractive, rich, smart, but Melissa knew him too well. She’d seen the dark side of his nature, and now he just made her feel sick.

  “Whatever happened between Hawk and me is between us. It doesn’t concern you, Wes.” She pulls her hand out from under his, clasping her hands underneath the table and striving to keep her voice from shaking.

  “He’s not right for you, Melissa. Surely you can see that? He’s dangerous. Do you know about the things he does? The things they all do?” Wes lowers his voice, looking around to check that no one is within eavesdropping distance.

  The hairs on the back of Melissa’s neck shoot up. “What do you know about that, Wes?” The wheels in her head start turning as Wes’s eyes flick down to the notes by his hand.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “I know enough, and the more I learn, the more I know that these aren’t people you should be around, Melissa. They’re dangerous criminals who need to be put away for a long time.” Wes’s voice is still quiet, but the self-righteousness burning in his eyes is enough to drive home his words.

  “What are you up to, Wes?” Melissa swallows hard, connecting the dots in her mind even as he opens his mouth.

  “You didn’t really think you were the only person DeVry would put on this story, did you?” He gives her that indulgent look that makes her want to slap him.

  Melissa’s mind races back to that morning in her editor’s office when he had dangled the exposé in front of her.

  “Do you want the job or not, Potter? If you don’t, there are other ways to get into the Kings that don’t involve you. I’m not really the type to put all my eggs in one basket.”

  He clearly hadn’t been bluffing; he’d covered his bases, bringing Wes in to infiltrate the Kings through The Shop—in case she couldn’t deliver the goods and vice versa. Melissa knows that she should feel vaguely offended that DeVry hadn’t trusted her enough to do the job, but any hurt in her pride is outweighed by the larger problem at hand.

  “You’re writing the story.” She looks between Wes and his notes, wondering how she could have been so stupid to think that his job at The Shop could possibly have just been a coincidence. “I didn’t even know that you were working at The Tribune.”

  “No reason for you to know.” Wes shrugs,
clearly enjoying having one up on her. “It’s not like you’ve been all that interested in what I do with my time recently.” His tone is accusatory, and Melissa spares a thought for how loose his grasp is on reality.

  “Besides, you’re not the only one that can get a job at the local newspaper. It’s not exactly The Wall Street Journal.” He snorts dismissively.

  “If you think so little of it, then why even bother working there? With your family’s influence, I’m sure you could get an internship at one of the nationals without any problem.” Melissa watches as he goes red under his tan. She’s hit a nerve—just as she had intended to.

  “I don’t need them to help me, Melissa. I can do it on my own. They never thought that I could, but I’ll show them, and I’ll show you, too.” His expression is heated, and Melissa watches as his breathing gets shallower. “When the story about the Caged Kings breaks with my byline, I’ll be able to walk onto any national newspaper that I want. It’s my ticket to the big time.”

  The intensity in Wes’s gaze is stifling. And although Melissa knows that she had seen the exposé in the same way, as her gateway to something bigger, Wes is purely focused on himself, on making the point that he can get ahead without using his family name or their money. Gaining a position on a national newspaper seems almost like an aside to him. All he wants is to prove a point.

  “You can’t write it, Wes. It’s not right.” Melissa shakes her head, leaning closer to him to make sure that they’re not overheard. Having this conversation in the middle of the bar, in full view of the majority of the Caged Kings MC, is potentially the worst idea she’s had in a long time. However, there’s no way around it now. “If you expose their secrets, the Feds are going to come down so hard on them they won’t have a chance. It’ll destroy the club.”

  Wes just shrugs, looking like he could care less. “It’s a big story, the more fallout the better—the bigger the splash it’ll make.”

  “This isn’t a game, Wes. They’ll go to prison!” Melissa has to work to keep her volume under control.

  “After the way he just treated you, Melissa, why do you even care?” Wes looks at her as if she were mad.

  “This isn’t just about, Hawk.” Melissa grinds her teeth knowing that what she’s saying isn’t completely true. She’d started to have second thoughts about writing the article when she’d gotten to know Hawk, but he hadn’t been the only reason. “They’re a family, Wes, a brotherhood. These are good people.”

  “Good people who just happen to be gun runners?” Wes frowns at her, as if she’s completely missing the point. “The people of Portland have a right to know about what’s going on in their back yard!”

  Melissa doesn’t bother to hide the skepticism on her face. “Since when are you worried about the ‘people of Portland’? You hate this city; you think it’s small town; you’ve told me that any number of times. You don’t care about the people here; all you care about is getting your name on a big story and to hell with everyone else.”

  Wes regards her quietly, looking at her approvingly, as if she’s just passed some sort of test. “Not everyone else, Melissa. There’s one person that I care about very deeply.”

  Melissa feels her skin crawl, as if spiders were running up and down underneath it. “If you care about me then tell DeVry you won’t write the article.” Even as she says it, she knows how pathetic her words sound.

  “I can’t do that, Melissa.” Wes shrugs as if it were completely out of his hands. “I gave him my word that I would deliver him the scoop that he’s asked me for. The Tribune needs this piece, without it the paper will probably fold…all those people whose jobs depend on it. What happens to them if I don’t write this, Melissa?”

  “Bullshit, Wes.” She shakes her head at his lie. “Stop acting like you’re some kind of hero. You couldn’t give a damn about the paper or the staff there! I bet you don’t even know the names of any of them because you’re too high and mighty to even bother to get to know them. All you care about is yourself and what this story is going to give you. Don’t try to turn it into anything nobler than that!” Melissa slides out of the booth, looking down at Wes with what she knows is nothing short of disgust.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Melissa. But that doesn’t change what I have to do.” He spreads his hands out in front of him, looking all wide-eyed and innocent.

  “And what’s stopping me from telling the club exactly what you’re up to?” She crosses her arms, frowning at this glaring flaw in his plan.

  Wes smiles up at her in a way that tells her that she’s missed something. “Well, first of all, why would they believe you over me? You’ve had a by-line in the Tribune, and I haven’t yet, not under my real name anyway.” Melissa’s eyes widen at the implication of his words. If she rats him out, then he’ll throw her under the bus without a second thought. “Besides, don’t you think that if you blow my cover with the Kings and by some miracle they actually believe you, then DeVry will just get his story another way? What are you going to do, stick around forever to defend these guys?”

  Melissa clenches her fists to stop her hands from shaking, partly from anger, but partly from frustration. She knows that what Wes is saying is true, and there’s nothing worse than feeling completely useless. “What will it take for you to drop the story and walk away, Wes?

  He looks up at her, considering her question. “I think you know the answer to that, Melissa.”

  “That’s never going to happen, Wes.” She shakes her head at him in disbelief.

  “Never is a long time, Melissa.” He doesn’t seem in the least affected by her attitude towards him. If anything, he seems completely sanguine about it, as if Melissa’s feelings for him are totally secondary.

  “Not long enough.” She mutters the words under her breath, abandoning all vestiges of politeness.

  “With the right incentive, anything is possible, Melissa.” Wes gives her a pointed look, before he takes his notes and starts working on them again, as if she weren’t even there anymore. “You better get back to your friends.”

  Melissa’s mouth works silently, trying to come up with some parting jab, something that will make Wes think twice about the story he’s writing. But nothing comes; her brain is too full with everything she’s just learned in the past twenty minutes in his company. So she turns on her heel and walks back towards Ali, just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.

  “What was that all about?” Ali’s hand reaches out to steady her friend as Melissa makes it to the bar. “And what the hell is creepazoid doing here?”

  Melissa swallows hard, knowing that there are too many bikers around them for her to answer Ali truthfully without anyone overhearing. “Where’d Felicia go?”

  Ali nods towards the pool table where Melissa notices that Felicia is in an animated conversation with Hawk. She’s making calming gestures while he stands in front of her, his hands bunched into fists by his side and his eyes flashing with anger.

  “What’s going on?” Melissa frowns at the scene playing out on the other side of the room, wishing she could hear what they were saying.

  “When Hawk saw you with the creep, he got all hot and bothered. Felicia went over to calm him down. It doesn’t look like it’s going so well.” Ali raises an eyebrow at Hawk’s evident lack of restraint.

  “He saw me talking to Wes?” Melissa flicks her eyes over towards the booth where Wes was sitting. From Hawk’s position by the pool table he would have had to be searching for her to see her there, she wouldn’t have been in his line of sight.

  “You know he hasn’t stopped looking at you since you walked in, right?” Ali gives her a surprised look, like she can’t believe that Melissa hadn’t seen that.

  “I thought he was ignoring me.” Melissa’s voice is quiet; she’s not quite ready to take on board that Ali’s observation might mean that perhaps Hawk did still care, at least a little.

  “If that’s what ignoring looks like, then I clearly know not
hing about men!” Ali throws her hands up dramatically. “Speaking of which, what is Wes doing here? It’s not exactly his scene.” Ali wrinkles her nose in distaste at Wes’s mere presence in the bar. To say that she wasn’t his greatest fan would be more than just an understatement.

  “I’ll fill you in on the way home. We should go.” Melissa grabs Ali’s hand, leading her towards the exit before her friend can say anything.

  “Hey, slow down there, Potter. Shouldn’t we tell Felicia we’re leaving? And by the way, why are we leaving? Did Wes say something to upset you?” The threatening tone in Ali’s voice is clear; she’s ready to pull Wes out by his curly hair and show him exactly what she thinks of him.

  “Felicia has her hands full with Hawk right now, and I don’t have any plans to get in the middle of that again.” Melissa gestures vaguely towards the pool table where the conversation is looking more heated by the minute, with Josh now weighing in. “And Wes…that’s not something we can talk about here.” She turns to face Ali, her expression grim. “But I think I’m going to need your help.”